At Tue, 13 May 2008 10:29:48 -0700, Dan Wing wrote: > > Consider two examples, both using TLS: > > > > - HTTPS in the majority of cases is incompatible with manual > > establishment > > of peer credentials. You connect to a lot of different Web > > servers and > > it's not practical to obtain their certificates out of band. > > But sometimes you have to. And, fortunately, almost every HTTPS-capable > client allows you to accept a certificate that isn't signed by a > CA that the HTTPS client trusts. > > For example, Firefox 3.0b5 complains about both of these certificates > for different reasons: > > https://www.softarmor.com > https://www.verisign.net
Agreed, which is why I said "a majority" instead of all. There are certainly cases in which HTTPS can be safely used with manually verified server credentials in the face of active attack, but they're the exception, not the rule. The basic assumption of the active attack protection in HTTPS is that the client can verify the server's certificate based purely on the URI and a list of trust anchors. Had it been suggested that the client had to get a certificate out of band for every server he wanted to communicate with, this would have been (rightly) criticized as unscalable. -Ekr _______________________________________________ Sip mailing list https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/sip This list is for NEW development of the core SIP Protocol Use [EMAIL PROTECTED] for questions on current sip Use [EMAIL PROTECTED] for new developments on the application of sip
